Blog Post Five - Politics and Policy Intersection

For my final blog post, I want explain how politics, policy, and cultural phenomena intersects with research done in Quantum Computing and Quantum Cryptography. Most of my blog thus far has exclusively described the mechanisms of the quantum computer and how these machines exploit the use of qubits to open a new realm of possibilities for the way we can compute data. I have not gone nearly as in depth in my blog describing how these quantum mechanisms leap bounds for securing data and networks. This blog post will focus on the cryptographic applications of quantum computing, and how public policy and opinion helps guide and motivate research done in this specific cryptographic discipline.

Cryptography, as I described in my very first introductory blog post, is effectively a method to distort and abstract data so that it may not be interpreted correctly by malicious users, but then return the data to it's original legible state for authorized users of any given system. The part of cryptography where we secure and abstract data is known as "encryption", and the part where we take the encrypted data and return it to its original state is known as "decryption". Essentially, when a user wishes to create a secure document, they first write it as they logically intend. Then, cryptography steps in and takes the data, and distorts it so that no human being can interpret what the user's document contains. The purpose of doing this is so that if somebody steals or intercepts the data which the user wished to keep secure, it is completely useless to the thief. The data is stored this way on a local database or online data store of some flavor. The moment that an authorized user of the system wishes to access the document through legitimate means, the cryptographic system will perform a decryption algorithm on the data, so they document can be accurately interpreted. This can be thought of as a lock and key, where encryption is the lock and decryption is the key. Below I have included a graphic to demonstrate this:

Image credit: Link

Another method of encryption separates data in multiple abstract data sections, but is only interpreted accurately when all sections of data join. Usually this is fragmented into hundreds of thousands of parts, but the follow image below illustrates the concept with only two sections of data. 

Image credit: Link

Now that I have refreshed and added to our understand of some basic cryptographic concepts, I would like to focus on public policy and politics that revolve around the concepts of cryptography. Realize that the concepts I am discussing apply to both traditional cryptography AND quantum cryptography. The quantum concepts intertwined with cryptography only amplify the magnitude of it's applications. This essentially means that any way you choose to secure a system using conventional methods, you can pump more money into a quantum implementation of the system which will be exponentially more secure than a conventional system. This is because quantum cryptography employs quantum algorithms to secure data which can only be solved in polynomial time using quantum computing for decryption. Conventional methods of encryption also employ polynomial time encryption, but not to the magnitude quantum encryption does.

To learn about the impact of cryptography in society, I read the following article by Franck Lin:
Cryptography's Past, Present, and Future Role in Society

The executive summary of Lin's book gives a really accurate perspective on the intersection of public policy and cryptography. "The Individual and Authority (defined as civil government, military, and corporations) have always had a complex relationship with cryptography. Craving digital privacy, individuals highly value the effectiveness and transparency of the algorithms protecting personal and financial secrets. On the other hand, governments want to intercept criminal communication, the military wants to maintain a proven military asset, and corporations, especially those that sell media, want to safeguard their multibilliondollar markets. These later desires often run counter to the privacy-rights of the individuals." (Lin 2010). Essentially, if you want a public entity such as the government to encrypt your crucial data and help protect your privacy from international threats, you must give up privacy to the government (such as the US govt) for them to protect you. Lin essentially defines the tradeoff between privacy and security. If you wish to be protected, you must sacrifice privacy to those whom offer services to protect you. "Quantum cryptology will end this decade-long struggle and also define who will finally win what cryptographic rights. However, the result of quantum cryptography is largely dependent on what precedents we establish in this generation." (Lin 2010). Here, Lin claims that the advancements in technologies such as quantum cryptography may help ease this battle between security and privacy, as the mechanisms are so strong we gain the ability to protect ourselves without assistance. "Quantum key distribution is currently experimentally possible and should be commercially feasible within a decade. The University of Cambridge and Toshiba have achieved transmission rates of 1 Mbit/s over 20 km of fiber and 10kbit/s over 100 km of fiber." (Lin 2010). The rest of the paper effectively describes all of the benefits gained, and how these new and more powerful quantum technologies resolve former social policy issues.

Reference:
Lin, F., (2010) Cryptography's Past, Present, and Future Role in Society WUSTL.